


A Broken Reality

by rayshant_bestopt



Series: Agents of Flarrow [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayshant_bestopt/pseuds/rayshant_bestopt
Summary: S4B|| Inside the Framework, Oliver works with Agent Johnson, Simmons, and Thea to recover their people, including Barry and Jesse, and gets a look at what might have been for all of their lives under different circumstances.





	1. Finding the Broken Road

**Author's Note:**

> Olivarry Event Week || Day 2 Memory Loss  
> DC-Marvel TV Crossover, in which Agent Oliver Queen runs a SHIELD field team based out of Starling City, and CSI Barry Allen studies up on "unexplained phenomena" in his spare time from the Central City Police Department. As the world opens up as more mind-complicated than normal people expect, the two get pulled closer and closer together.

Oliver walked cautiously behind Laurel, offering her a tight, vaguely reassuring smile every time she glanced back at him as they made their way down the ARGUS stairwell; all the while his blue eyes darted back and forth, taking in any differences he could considering this containment facility and the one in the real world. Besides the constant green and HYDRA insignia, there didn’t seem to be a lot, but it was hard to know for certain based on the human eye. So he continued to simply look like a pompous business CEO and mayoral hopeful as the director continued to explain all the do’s and don’ts of their visit.

Thea had tried to talk him out of this. So had Daisy, especially when the back door they’d created had been cut off. It would draw too much attention, potentially put them all at even greater risk. But if Daisy could reach Coulson, and they were stuck here anyways, Oliver personally felt he had nothing to lose.

“And you’ve read the file?” The question jolted Oliver back to the present, and he nodded—he’d all but memorized the file, the stories they’d made up about Barry in order to lock him up like this. The horrible crimes that Laurel Lance—his _wife_ in the Framework—had pinned on the other man. It made him nauseous to think about, but he kept his features a mask. He wasn’t an agent here: he wasn’t really _anybody_ of use-- one of those know-nothing, bottom-line execs that he'd despised working with, ironically. So he just schooled his expression to a careful composite of fear and curiosity and determination that he felt he'd seen a dozen times before that befitted self-important men that had no idea what they were dealing with. Whatever he had to be to see his boyfriend. 

The director nodded. “Well, then, here we are.” She glanced over at the heavy steel door, punching in a code, and undergoing both a fingerprint and retina scan before the door’s security light finally flipped from red to green and the locks receded, allowing them to enter with a stomach-turning “Hail Hydra”.

It wasn’t a large room: a small empty table with two chairs on either side halfway to the far wall. About a foot away was a floor-to-ceiling plexiglass window, through which was another chair, bolted where it sat under bright fluorescent lighting. 

But Oliver didn’t notice any of those things. He couldn’t stop staring at the man standing dead center on the other side of the reinforced barrier.

At first he just felt relief: Barry was _alive_ (Agent Simmons had experienced some trouble on that end, for her part) and right in front of him. Oliver felt his heart leap and he wanted to pick up one of the chairs, break down the plexiglass and just grab up Barry tight—hold him and never let him go.

Then details began to come into focus. Barry’s hair—his beautiful chestnut shag—was far too dark. Black, almost, greasy and bedraggled. The spark in his gorgeous emerald gaze was gone, as was the emerald itself: only one eye still carried it. The other was glossed over, and Oliver felt sick as he took in the mottled scarring that rampaged across the right half of his face. But worse…worst of all was the sinister, arrogant quirk that settled on his lips. Everything light and hopeful and happy about Barry was just…warped and twisted as the man stared out at the pair watching him.

“Ah, District Attorney Lance,” he greeted, his voice oozing with snide contempt. “Always a pleasure. It’s been far too long since you’ve come to visit. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“No reason to remember you, Savitar,” Laurel retorted, tone short and unphased. She almost looked bored.

“Come now; my conviction made you, Ms. Lance,” Barry insisted. “Do you really think Hydra would have even taken a second glance at you for your impressive digging into the night prowlers of Starling City? No no—you needed me to go down. For them to see that you were dedicated to the cause, were willing to do _whatever_ it takes.” He leaned close to the glass with a smirk. “All the palms to grease—possibly break. How do you sleep at night knowing what you did to put me here, Madam DA?”

“On memory foam. With silk sheets. In a master suite of a mansion. Whereas I imagine you have difficulty even conceiving any luxuries beyond toilet paper nowadays, Savitar; so quite well compared to you.” 

Barry scoffed a little at that, but his good eye flickered away from the honey-haired woman for a moment before his creepy grin fixed firmly back in place. “Well, apparently something’s amiss then, if you’ve brought company to see me. Who’s this then?” He slowly dragged his gaze across Oliver’s form to take him in, and the agent could sense Laurel taking a small step sideways to block him from the prisoner’s leer. “Could it be the illustrious Oliver Queen? Doting husband to the District Attorney and mayoral hopeful of Starling City? My, my, this is intriguing.”

Laurel turned to him, but Oliver’s mouth still felt dry, mind still unable to wrap around the insanity before him. Barry, meanwhile, laughed. “Someone seems a little starstruck. Ms. Lance, are you utilizing taxpayer resources to put together some sort of _conjugal_ visit?”

The sandy-haired archer (or he was in the real world) finally managed to shake himself back, and glanced over to Laurel. “Can I have a few minutes?” he murmured quietly, working furiously to keep his features composed.

His Framework wife furrowed her brow, but finally nodded, glancing at the men on either side of her. “We’ll be right outside,” she assured him, loud enough so that the convict behind the door could hear her words as well. With one last look, the three strode back through the door, and Oliver watched as it closed, the door buzzing locked behind them.

“Alone at last.” Barry’s voice carried in a sing song tone, vaguely similar to what he’d sound like in real life—if he was a complete psychopath.

Oliver’s gaze turned back to him and he shook his head slightly. “Barry?” he asked, barely able to believe what he was seeing. “What happened?”

Puzzlement and anger flickered across the harsh features of the younger man for the smallest moment, before defaulting back to a creepy smile and laugh. “Well, criminal insanity and five years of incarceration in solitary confinement in a Hydra-sponsored hole, for starters, Queenie” he replied gleefully with a shrug. “But I suppose you know as well as your wifey that thick walls can’t _really_ shut me down. My work is thriving on the outside-- plans in progress at every stage. So the real question is what happened to the CEO of Queen Consolidated and favorite Hydra puppet that he’d be descending to this top secret prison cell? Impotency issues?” He chuckled and winked, tapping at the corner of his lip. “You’ve got some drool.”

“Barry, it’s me,” he tried again, though a part of him knew the effort would be futile. As far as he’d heard, the entire team was batting zero on finding any teammates in the system that had remembered them or the real world yet (except for Coulson the crazy-conspiracy theorist, and he was still only partially there), but Oliver couldn’t help but hold out hope that his face, his voice, _something_ , would snap his boyfriend out of this. “It’s me, and us—we’re here to rescue you from this place.”

Barry laughed outright at that, but it was possibly the most twisted sound Oliver had ever heard come from the man. “The Hydra patsy is going to rescue me? I’m not sure even your dirty money has the reach to open these titanium doors, Queenie,” his lips twisted in amusement, and it took everything in Oliver’s training not to flinch. “I mean, you and I both know all of the filthy beds your canary nested in to get us all here: you, me, _and_ her. So I doubt any of us are going _anywhere_ now. But,” he slid forward, licking his lips as his eyes raked up and down the visage before him, “if you want to make the most of your time here, I’ve found some interesting ways to get around the physical barriers.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Barry—“

“My name is Savitar, you scum-sucking peon.” Barry’s eyes narrowed, all humor suddenly consumed by the dark flames behind his gaze.

Oliver leaned forward, hand on the glass, desperate to touch the other’s face. “ _Your name is Barry Allen_ ,” he insisted stubbornly. “And you don’t belong here—this whole place is some freaky virtual prison world that’s twisted everyone into something awful. You’re really a SHIELD asset, and a hero and CSI to Central City, and a good and loving and amazing man. You love musicals and pizza and stealing the blankets, and I know that man is still in there, and just—please, Barry, you have to remember.”

The criminal stared at him wide-eyed in shock, and Oliver held his breath hopefully.

The scoff was cold, and hard, and Oliver could feel his gut twist as if stabbed and bleeding out. “SHIELD? CSI? _Hero_?” Savitar laughed again, harder, face stretched wide in a grin that was grotesque. “And people think _I’m_ crazy—what the hell have they been putting in your coffee, Queenie?”

“Listen, please, I know it’s hard to understand—“

“No it’s not. In fact, since you’re so obviously stupid I’ll even break it down for you. Hydra has been fucking you and your wife hard and long, and you’ve obviously finally snapped, and somehow have forgotten that I hate everything about you and yours, Queenie. That the funds from your company paid the Santini family to turn against me, even if they _tragically_ didn’t make it to trial. That your wife’s ordered raid on my lab destroyed my life’s work and put me in this hole. That the fascist Nazis that are funding your whole life’s ambition are responsible for everything that’s wrong with this world—not me. So no attempts at appealing to my humanity or calling me by some irrelevant name is going to turn me to your side, and if I ever get out of here, you bet the first thing I’m going to do is wrap my hands around your wife’s pretty neck and snap it like a twig, while you watch, before burning you both to the ground. So I recommend you leave before I report you as a subversive for even mentioning the evil S word.” His voiced dropped to a low growl as he finished his threat, before that sneer slid back onto his face, “and I don’t mean me.”

Oliver’s chest tightened painfully as he stared back at the disfigured form of his lover, before the sound of clanking metal drew his attention to his periphery where the security was opening the door.

“I’ll be back,” he told Savitar under his breath. “I promise I will fix this.”

“I look forward to the company,” Savitar replied with a scoff. “We can trade _Enlightenment_ stories.”

“Get away from the glass, Savitar,” the security guard commanded as he approached the pair, and Barry raised his hands casually, pushing backward as he sauntered toward the far wall.

“I did all I could, Ms. Lance, but I just don’t think you can give him what he needs,” he taunted the attorney as she quickly closed the space to place what was meant to be a comforting hand on her husband’s shoulder. “But what’s a fulfilling sex life with your partner compared to being able to get off to a skeleton with tentacles?”

“Come on, Oliver; we need to leave.” Her fingers slid down to curl around his bicep and tugged him toward the door, eyes fiercely protective against the criminal. Oliver cast one last disappointed look at Barry, before allowing himself to be steered away.

“Hail Hydra,” called out mockingly toward their backs before the door slammed shut, security locks beeping back into place.


	2. The Measure of Ones and Zeroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Against better judgment, Oliver breaks Savitar out of his cell and brings him into the Resistance in order to get them back home. However, the team struggles to bring everyone together against their new "programming", and Oliver and Barry are no exception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olivarry Event || Day 2 Memory Loss

Oliver had to admit, the present circumstances were a _little_ more complicated than he’d anticipated. He’d been just as naïve as the three women he came in with, plugging themselves into the matrix under the belief that it would simply be a matter of finding their friends and sneaking back out via the rendezvous point they’d created. Instead, everyone was deeply embedded in this virtual hell (he was totally with Simmons on this one) and AIDA was aware that they were here. And while they’d slowly managed to find the current incarnation of SHIELD and collect the Director and Coulson, only the latter was even remotely aware of the real world. Not to mention in the meantime they’d managed to lose both Daisy and Radcliffe to May and Fitz now working for Hydra, and neither Mace nor Ward (Ward? Seriously? _Again?_ ) seemed terribly trusting of what the considered Hydra’s top yes-men family or the pushy dead woman that vouched for a history teacher. 

Especially now that Oliver had gone behind their backs by breaking into a high-level Hydra detainment facility to kidnap his boyfriend, who was a highly dangerous and insane criminal in this world.

They all stood in Mace’s office, since there weren’t a lot of options for privacy and Barry had to be hidden out of sight. Simmons and Thea both looked flabbergasted with him, and Mace and Ward were furious. Oliver, however, simply ignored them all in favor of checking the restraints holding an unconscious Barry in the chair.

“Ollie, what the _hell_ —“

“You brought a complete _psychopath_ into our base—“

“Are you all completely deranged--?”

The SHIELD agent finally stood and turned back to the group, his eyes set on his sister. “Barry would never have ended up here if it hadn’t been for me, Thea. I wasn’t going to leave him behind to rot.”

His blue gaze flickered to Simmons, who, while thrown by the situation, seemed a bit more understanding. From what he’d heard about the fiasco with Radcliffe and what was going on with Fitz (now going by “The Doctor”), he imagined Jemma _would_ be sympathetic to Oliver trying to save Barry from himself in this torture chamber.

“Okay, I think I’ve been _incredibly_ patient, with all of you—“ the Patriot fixed the newcomers with his stare, “But between sparing the Doctor, and now harboring Savitar in our base? Damn straight you owe us answers.”

Simmons did it then: explained the Framework, AIDA, everything, while Oliver and Thea stood quietly in the background. After all, this was her expertise, and she understood the science better than anyone. Oliver had honestly only come for Barry and Jesse, and Thea to back his play. The rest of their team was (hopefully) safe and sound back in the real world, Sara having grabbed up Cisco in a redoubled effort of relocating the Inhumans and enhanced citizens to safety from the Russian and Watchdogs, if not finding their sorry ass organization and shutting it down for good.

However, even Oliver recognized the somewhat tactless delivery of the speech, despite agreeing with it wholeheartedly; as it went over like a lead balloon. Mace and Ward were left livid about the “meaningless” losses insinuated in their cause, and then distracted by Burrows’ interruption. When they and Simmons left, however, Oliver stayed behind, turning back to the broken Barry who slumped in his chair. “He’s on our side,” he maintained quietly to the remaining agent before she could question his sanity as well.

“How do you know that? You said he threatened to kill you, Ollie.”

“He’s Barry,” the older Queen insisted, the back of his hand tracing along the side of Barry’s unmarked jaw. 

“I know, but if he’s like Fitz—“

“He’s not. He’s just…they _did_ something to him, Thea, but deep down—“ Oliver knew he sounded delusional, even to himself. Wasn’t that why he’d knocked the man unconscious in the first place as he made their escape? Because, as much as he didn’t want to believe what he’d read, the Framework’s Barry was a man that was so twisted he’d declared himself a god and went on a decade-long killing spree. Instead of appealing to Barry’s goodness, he simply confessed the truth. “I couldn’t leave him there—here. AIDA would never have gotten her creepy robot hands on him if I hadn’t let him go with Coulson.”

“Like you could ever keep Barry from helping people he cares about,” Thea reminded him, a gentle hand on his shoulder. “He’s always been loyal to SHIELD, and to Coulson and Daisy, and you. There was no way you could have known what AIDA had planned, any more than the rest of us.”

“I knew about Jesse, and May—“

“And we were trying to find them. That was the whole reason Barry joined up with Coulson’s team to begin with,” Thea interjected. “Because he cares about them as much as we do. He knew the risks, Ollie.”

“Did he?” Oliver’s gaze fixed on the mutilated half of his boyfriend’s face. He couldn’t imagine anyone knowing that this could happen—not to _Barry_.

There was a pause, and Oliver watched the quiet rise and fall of the other man’s chest. 

“You know this could get messy, if he’s as bad as they’re saying,” Thea warned him, and Oliver nodded. He’d already been proactive once out of fear for what Barry was possibly capable of. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“No, but…this is what I'm doing.” Thea didn’t say anything, but Oliver could feel her acceptance. His sister had been through so much—maybe more than Oliver himself, in a way, and yet she was always on his side. It probably helped that she liked Barry and felt equally passionate about getting him back. Either way, the younger Queen’s support had always anchored Oliver, and he was glad to have it here and now.

“I’m going to go check on Simmons and the others—see what our next move is.”

“We’ve got to get Daisy back,” Oliver sighed, combing his fingers back roughly through his scalp. “And there’s still Jesse, and Mack, and—“ 

“We will,” Thea replied. “Just, stay here—keep an eye on him, Ollie. If something goes wrong—“

“He’s _Barry_ ,” Oliver insisted, even though he knew it was far from that easy. Radcliffe and the Darkholde had twisted his sweet boyfriend in this world, making him as ugly as the scars on his face, and Oliver had no idea where to even start in trying to fix it. 

Thea didn’t point this out though, simply nodded and slipped out the door, leaving the two men alone. 

Oliver had somewhat zoned out when a groan emitted from behind him, and he whirled around to throw himself at Barry’s side. “Hey,” he greeted soothingly as the other man groggily opened his eyes and looked around.

“You’re kidding,” he finally stated, giving a dry laugh. “Where the hell are we?”

“Somewhere safe, for now. I told you I’d get you out of there.”

“Careful Queenie—what would your wife say about this clandestine rendezvous?” Oliver ignored the comment: Laurel wasn’t really alive. That woman was just an avatar, a simulated partner in what his world could have ended up as, and he had no interest in it. Apparently, his expression said as much. “Ahhh, or is the little missus not part of your Great Exodus? Decide you’d rather have something more satisfying up your ass than that stick?” His face twisted into a creepy leer, and Oliver sighed.

“I knocked you out before, Barry—I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up.”

“ _Savitar_. And I won’t be much good to you if I’m unconscious,” Barry pointed out, before his lip twitched and his eyebrow wagged, “that is, unless you prefer—“

“Don’t even,” Oliver cut him off. “And you’ll be way worse off if you’re working the crazy criminal persona. You said you could play nice long enough for this—that you could be part of a team.”

“A team killing Hydra Agents? Yeah, I’m good for that,” Barry grinned gleefully. “Plus a change of scenery, a little fresh air—not a bad way to go out.”

“No one’s going out,” Oliver insisted. “We’re finding the back door and we’re going home.” His eyes caught the other man’s reaction. “You still think I’m crazy?”

“You mean the whole ‘alternate reality where SHIELD won and I’m a hero with super-speed powers’?” the criminal replied. “It ranks pretty high up there on the list of tinfoil theories, and I’ve spent a lot of time with those types.”

“Then why did you agree to come with me?” the agent pressed.

“You mean, why did I agree to be busted out of a secret reinforced hole in the ground and kill government agents?” Barry replied with a laugh. “I can’t imagine.”

“So that’s it? You really…none of this feels familiar, or…anything?” Oliver felt frustration and disappointment at his own stupidity for letting himself believe that Barry’s memories might have been returning, even subconsciously.

For once though, the deformed criminal dropped the malicious twist to his features. “Does it really matter?” he asked, and Oliver looked up at him. “If I believe any of this?”

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded his head once. “Because it’s the truth. Because it’s who you really are—not Savitar, not some killer. You have people that care about you—friends and family: Cisco and Iris and Joe…”

“And my parents?” Oliver glanced up in surprise: this was the first time the Framework version of Barry had asked for any details about his life in the real world, and he was surprised to see a tiny spark of hope peeking through the dark shadows of the other’s broken gaze. “In your better, _good_ reality—are they okay?”

Internally, the SHIELD agent cringed: he should have known that no matter what universe he was in, Barry Allen would always want his parents, alive and well. Here, one was in a vegetative state and the other had been taken as a Potential Inhuman by Hydra—but in the real world, was the alternative any better?

Apparently his hesitation was answer enough, and Oliver watched with heartache as the brief light that had been in Barry’s eyes was quickly extinguished. “Oh.”

“You found him—you got justice,” Oliver tried to explain.

“I got that here too,” Barry retorted with a bittersweet laugh. “Wells' lab facility in Central City? That was my justice for my mother and me. Watching Thawne bleed like she did? The flesh of those people melt away?” He gestured to his scar. “That bombing at the police station? That was for my father; although thirteen agents hardly seems like a fair trade for what I’ve lost.”

Hearing him confirm all of the deaths—all of the killings—made Oliver sick. Barry had always been so adamant against hurting people, even when it was necessary. “And the others?” he couldn’t help but ask. “That nightclub in Starling? The bioweapon you set off at the train station? What were those for?”

“Well, if you find a passion,” Barry shrugged with an amused twitch to his lips. “Which seems to me to be exactly what you need here, so if you’d just untie me…?” He fidgeted in his seat pointedly.

“I still have to win over Mace,” Oliver told him, rising to a stand and biting his lip. “If he doesn’t okay it, I’ll have to keep you in here so you don’t end up on the receiving end of a bullet to the head.”

Barry scoffed, but a quiet protest made its way to Oliver's ears as he walked to the door, “Wait...what makes you think if you leave me here like this someone isn’t just going to do it while you’re gone?”

“You’ll be fine,” Oliver told him, rolling his eyes, burying his own concerns about that exact thing.

“Well, then, next time you tie me up I expect a little more satisfaction from it,” he retorted goadingly, and Oliver shook his head and walked out the door.

***

Mace was by no means sold on Savitar’s allegiance to the Resistance, and Oliver didn’t blame him. He was pretty sure Barry was feeling no such loyalty to any part of the cause except for the part where the man had promised him a chance to kill Hydra agents. Although, truth be told, Oliver himself had little interest in helping the computer-simulated soldiers fight their war either—he had his own mission to be concerned with.

When Mace went down at the Enlightenment Center, however, Coulson seemed to recognize the need for more men—or maybe he, like Oliver, believed that Barry was in there, deep down, somewhere. Oliver was ordered to stick with him at all times and keep him in the shadows, but with May and Daisy’s escape, Ward taking off on a search and recovery, and Jemma and Trip’s sudden disappearance on the Quinjet, the remaining Agents recognized their shaky position. A choice that none of the members seemed to appreciate him making when they returned and decided to take the media station, Savitar included.

“You good on the plan, Ba--Savitar?” Daisy asked, cautiously friendly toward the man that had once been on her special task team, although still weirded out by the name.

“Guard the entrance, stay with Queenie, don’t kill anyone,” the man deadpanned in clear disappointment, throwing a critical sideways look at the agent beside him. 

“And don’t be seen,” Ward commanded sternly, loading his weapon. “If people associate the Resistance with a psychotic serial killer, everything the Patriot worked for goes straight to hell.”

“We won’t be seen,” Oliver assured him, placing a hand on the criminal’s arm. “This will work.”

The group unloaded and Oliver and Savitar moved into the alley, taking down two security guards quietly before staking out their spot and waiting for the others.

“Okay, so in your world, what kind of kinks are heroes into?”

Oliver’s head snapped hard to stare at the man beside him raise an eyebrow at him in amusement. “What?” he gaped, distracted from the mission.

“Well, it’s obvious you have a thing for me, Queenie, which-- hey, I don’t blame you,” he continued with a smug expression. “So I assume we’re fucking around in that other world. But I mean, if I’m really a SHIELD asset, a—“ he gave a dry chuckle “-- _Central City cop_ : I guess now you’ve got me curious about how the other side lives. Tell me, Queenie—are you a handcuffs kind of guy? Myself, I think I’d get off on watching a guy like you grovel.”

“That’s not—we’re not— _no_ ,” Oliver sputtered, feeling again like he was talking to a stranger with his boyfriend’s face; a feeling he hated. “I’m not talking about our sex life with you _here_.”

“But we do have one?” Oliver sighed, but the other man’s face broke into a triumphant grin. “I knew there was a reason you were so obsessed with me. Let me guess: my winning smile?” He purposely turned his face slightly to show off the mangled grin on one side.

“You don’t have them.” He said it quietly, trying to stay focused—he probably shouldn’t have said it at all, knowing how talking about his past and family seemed to trigger Savitar. He’d been very careful, even while selling the real world, to only talk about recent events.

But the other man still caught it. “What?”

Oliver glanced sideways, seemingly weighing the risks of explaining that night to the criminal. “In the real world…you don’t have the scars. The night your mother was attacked…she died, Henry was arrested for it, but you…you weren’t hurt.” 

“I wasn’t there?”

“You were: you saw it. You never forgot, even when you went to live with Joe and Iris. But until the Battle of New York, you couldn’t convince anyone to believe you.” At the other’s questioning look, Oliver gave a vague gesture, “Aliens—Avengers. It was a whole thing. It proved the impossible. Like you always had been trying to do.” He bit his lip. “We caught Thawne with records and evidence we pulled from _your_ files—I never told you that.”

“And my dad?” Oliver remained quiet, but the other pressed, “Did he get out?”

“He did…he lives in Coast City now. He’s really proud of you. The man you’ve become.”

Oliver watched, but Savitar just stood quietly for a few minutes, considering the information. Oliver supposed he should be grateful he didn’t fly into a rage and ruin the whole op, but he was also concerned. Even in this world, Barry still got that little furrow in his brow when he was trying to deal with hard news.

“I tried to save her.” The single emerald eye was slightly glazed over, as if seeing something far away. “He was moving so fast—too fast. The sheer velocity… I stopped him: she lived, sort of. But my—“ He gestured to his face. “They arrested my father: questioned him, but they couldn’t prove anything with my testimony. Not that that really helped: everyone still called him a murderer anyways, and after the Cambridge incident, Hydra reopened the case. Arrested him as a Potential Inhuman. I swore I’d do whatever it took to get vengeance for my family after that.” Savitar shook his head, and the pieces clicked into place for Oliver. He’d read the report—how had he been so stupid to not have seen it? That Barry’s greatest regret was not being able to save his mom and dad that night. But apparently AIDA had warped that desire as much as the others, and now there was just this damaged shell of a man that had driven himself mad.

“I’m not saying I believe any of this: it’s still completely insane,” he insisted quietly. 

“It’s also the _truth_ , and you’ll see for yourself when we get to the back door,” Oliver insisted.

There was a brief pause, and then the opaque eye looked beyond the agent. “Looks like they got the word out,” he remarked, and Oliver turned to see black SUVs tearing down the road toward them. 

“We’ve got to get to the bus,” he said, but suddenly the twisted glee was back.

“Go—I’ll catch up.”

“No—Barry, we’ve got to go now. That was the order.” Oliver tugged at his arm, but Savitar quickly slipped through, approaching the first van as the agents piled out and pulled out their guns. “Barry!”

He pulled out his own gun and started firing, missing his exploding arrows as he had to tag every gunman individually, trying to protect the criminal as he raced toward the lot like a lunatic. He hadn’t even pulled out his pistol that Oliver had insisted they give him—was this his way of ensuring he would never return to ARGUS? Or was he planning on giving them up? Had Ward and Mace been right all along?

A sudden explosion caught Oliver off guard, and he watched as a Hydra agent held his hand out, blood pouring from a sizable wound. Upon looking closer, he realized that Barry did have a something in his hand—a small metallic box that was somehow reversing the trajectory of the bullets speeding toward him, causing the weapons to blow apart in their owner’s hands. Where the hell had that come from? 

Before anyone could properly react, a bottle shattered on the ground, and a hazy mist rose from it, causing the agents to stare at each other, shouting hysterically and turn their weapons on each other. Barry was now staring in ecstasy at the chaos and death he was creating.

“Barry—come on!” Oliver shouted again, and the criminal glanced once more at the havoc before turning back toward Oliver to leave.

“Stop!” Both men froze, and Oliver visibly grimaced as he turned to face Laurel, pulling off her gas mask as she stepped from behind the third van, the gun in her hand aimed at Barry.

“Laurel, what are you doing here?” The SHIELD agent kept his hands raised, stepping slowly forward. She was an attorney, not an agent. He slowly waved one hand downward, "Please, just--"

“No—don’t move, either of you! Not another step!” The honey-haired woman jerked the gun between the two men, a mixture of anger and betrayal morphing her features in a way that Oliver hated to see. 

“Well, well—Ms. Lance. This is a treat.”

“Shut up, Barry,” Oliver growled, taking another step toward the man. He was _this_ close to getting his whole team home—he was _not_ going to lose Barry now. 

Hearing the familiarity, the _protectiveness_ in her husband’s tone…fury won out, and Laurel fixed the weapon on Barry, who looked anything but yielding. “What did you do Savitar?!” Her finger trembled on the trigger as she stole a glance at the sandy-haired man behind the criminal. “ _What did you do?!_ ” 

Barry’s expression was mangled and sadistic in his glee, as if evil Christmas and Birthday was all wrapped up in one. 

“Please, Laurel—let me explain,” Oliver begged, but Laurel was beyond reach.

“I’m sorry Oliver. I loved you—I would do _anything_ for you. But…I don’t know how. You’re not just a subversive—you’re one of them. They’ve destroyed the Enlightenment Center… _you_ destroyed…” She shook her head hard, eyes glassy. “Everything we could have been…”

His blue eyes watched the gun, waiting for the shot. She hated Savitar, blamed him for everything—but to Laurel, he had no doubt she was sparing him Hydra’s wrath with this small mercy. He glanced in his periphery, and hoped like hell that Barry made it home.

Barry, however, seemed to have no such intention of going quietly. His hand flashed as he moved toward his vest, and Laurel’s aim snapped in his direction, the gunshot deafening even through the row of the messy direction the op had taken.

Oliver didn’t think—he pulled the knife from his vest and threw it instinctively, the weapon lodging in Laurel’s shoulder, causing the gun to fly from her hand as she cried out in pain. The archer rushed to Barry’s side, where the man was still standing.

“Barry—are you okay?” There was blood coming from somewhere, but it mixed with the overall splatter from the man’s earlier melee, and Oliver’s hands hovered over his chest as he searched for any sign of distress before finally resting on either side of his face. “Are you hurt?”

He blinked, staring at the blue eyes panicking before him, before laughing. “Your wife is a crap shot,” he retorted, panting between chuckles, but Oliver could practically see his pulse racing as he recovered from the shock. The agent sighed in relief, glancing down as he took a deep breath.

A voice called out, and Oliver looked over to see Daisy and the team waving them over to the bus impatiently. “Come on; we need to go—“

Barry was no longer beside him, and as a pained gasp reached his ears, Oliver could feel the world turning in slow motion. Despite his mind begging him not to, his neck still pulled him to where he disbelievingly watched as Laurel’s body went limp, eyes wide as they stared down Savitar defiantly until the end, the man twisting the knife he’d pulled out of her shoulder further into her gut before dropping her corpse callously onto the pavement and striding back over to the older man.

“Now we can go,” he said simply, breaking into a run and heading toward a horrified Daisy to join the rest of the team.

***

Oliver sighed and stood, walking away from Simmons and staring at the walls of the jet as she grieved over Fitz’s asshole dad’s death. Not that Oliver hadn’t understood what she was trying to do—she’d come to him specifically because he probably understood her situation better than anyone here—but now he had a feeling things had just become ten times worse, and getting Fitz out would be more difficult than ever; and he had no way of helping with that. After all, as psychotic as Savitar was, he’d still been willing enough to escape when Oliver had offered him the chance. It was everything _after_ that that had been tricky.

“Your evil boyfriend missed you while you were gone.” Oliver’s blue gaze flickered toward the green eyes of his sister questioningly, and she continued quietly, “He wouldn’t shut up, asking where you were.”

“Probably worried that we’d lock him up and prevent him from brutally murdering anyone else,” Oliver muttered, but Thea shook her head.

“I think he was worried that you were going to leave him behind,” she suggested, glancing over her shoulder where Savitar’s green eye shifted around the room suspiciously, though he didn't fight his restraints. “After what happened with Laurel…”

“She wasn’t real.” The truth of that fact was what Oliver was desperately holding onto, his mind still trying desperately to reconcile the Barry he loved with the man who’d mercilessly gutted an unarmed woman.

“Ollie—“

“She wasn’t real…but he doesn’t believe that.” Oliver glanced at Thea sadly, finally admitting the real reason he’d agreed to help Simmons—to leave Barry’s side. “He thinks all of this is insane, all of us are insane. But I watched him kill Laurel without hesitation.”

“And May tried to kill Mace and threatened Hope. Fitz killed Agnes and tortured Daisy. Jesse framed Wells as an Inhuman,” Thea reminded him. “No one here has clean hands, Ollie. Everything here is twisted and _not us_.” 

“He doesn’t believe in any of this.”

“And yet he’s followed you every step of the way,” Thea insisted, her lips quirking in that smug way that she got when she was in Annoying-Little-Sister mode. “Come on, Ollie—you know that if he’d been with Mace or Coulson he wouldn’t have stuck around this long, wouldn't have bought into this team thing for even a second. But even as a murdering mad scientist, he still trusts you. I mean, I don’t know Ollie—maybe he doesn’t remember anything, but something about you still gets to him.” She glanced around the plane—at Coulson and May, at Jesse, at Jemma— “I just…it gives me hope, you know? For Jemma at least—we can fix Fitz, because if anyone loves each other like crazy besides you and Barry, it’s them, right?”

“I guess.” Understatement of the year-- the entire organization pretty much rooted for Fitz-Simmons.

“So it doesn’t matter that he’s Head of Hydra here, just like it doesn’t matter that Savitar over there is a psychotic killer with pizza-face in this reality. Because you guys still found each other.” She nodded. “I just feel like this is going to work. We’re going to do this. And when we get home—I’m going to find Jesse and ask her out for real.”

Oliver arched an eyebrow in surprise. “ _That_ was the point of this pep talk? Your faith in all of us getting out of the Framework is the means to your asking out Wells?”

Thea rolled her eyes and shoved her brother lightly. “Just go hang out with your freakshow, Ollie,” she retorted playfully, and her brother shook his head before slowly making hs way over toward the other man, suddenly much more aware of the way his twisted smile felt a little different than the last few days.


	3. Back Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having returned to the real world, Oliver deals with being on SHIELD sabbatical by helping Barry deal with who he was inside the Framework.

There was a noise, a shuffling in the bedroom, and Oliver pushed out his chair, closing his laptop and jogged to the source. A soft, scared whimper reached his ears through the darkness, and Ollie’s heart ached as he padded to the bed, fingers carefully grasping Barry’s shoulders and shaking his boyfriend awake. 

“Barry, Barry—wake up. You’re okay.” There was sniffling, and broken breaths as the younger man jolted back to consciousness, and Oliver grabbed him up and pulled him close, his thumb tracing across his perfectly smooth cheek to wipe away the wet tracks running a line down his face.

Three weeks had passed—three weeks since they’d destroyed AIDA, and the Darkholde, and SHIELD, if Oliver were being completely honest. His team had done its best to backup the effort to shut down all of the Daisy LMDs, but obviously that had been more on Coulson’s watch. And moreover, that still left Talbot in a coma, the Russian robots on the loose, and a full blown investigation on the happenings of the base and the "suspicious" death of Mace. It was a mess, and Oliver’s team had been ordered to distance themselves from the former director’s, which turned out to be really easy since they’d all but disappeared off the face of the planet. Luckily the Starling City branch themselves had avoided the brunt of the fallout, being shadowed as they were put on what was declared to be paid administrative leave as the UN decided their next move. Basically, the organization was keeping them close while holding them at arm’s length as they tried to sort out the wreckage; but it was a vacation either way, and Oliver felt his team deserved it after everything.

Honestly, though, Oliver was grateful for the break for Barry’s sake. Coming out of The Framework had been… difficult, to say the least, for the slim brunette. He’d been short and sparse when answering calls and texts, working long hours back at CCPD. It was Joe who had finally called Ollie in fatherly concern, not completely aware of what had happened to his adopted son, but knowing that Barry hadn’t been this withdrawn since his parents had died. Which, Oliver didn’t want to explain, was kind of what had happened. Talking to Jesse, it wasn’t like a dream so much as an entire second lifetime, which meant that Barry now seemed to have lived two entirely different sets of tragic memories—this one in which his father was dead and his mother alive in a vegetative state, all while his face was seared away by a supernatural speedster. After Joe’s call, Oliver gave up on giving his boyfriend space and instead simply just showed up at his door, which he was one hundred percent certain was the right call immediately upon taking in the sight of his ashen face and bloodshot eyes. 

It only took a little pushing to get Barry on sick leave—Singh had been hinting at it since Barry’d come back, despite both the CSI and the Flash being well beyond efficient in the field. But Barry had a horrible poker face, and Singh had known he’d been helping with SHIELD, which was now on pretty much every media outlet known to man. It was obvious something serious had gone down.

Oliver didn’t have to be back in Starling for any particular reason, so he stayed, officially crashing in Barry’s guest room, but ending up in the same bed as the speedster more often than not. He was careful not to push too hard—not to comment on how Barry spent an extra minute inspecting his face in the mirror; scanning through articles in the paper; staring at the cutlery on the table or in the drawer. Like he didn’t quite believe this was really him. That he didn’t do all of the things that had gotten him locked up in the other world.

“It just felt so normal,” he’d tried to explain. “It wasn’t like being brainwashed or anything—it was all just…me. All of that hate—I _wanted_ people to suffer. Innocent people. I built all of those weapons, those gases and technology, not because of what Hydra was, but because I wanted as many people to hurt as I could reach, and Hydra was just the easiest means.”

He shook his head, trembling slightly, allowing Oliver to bring him in closer. “And I remember all of it. All of those people—people I know. What I did to Joe and Iris, to Laurel. God, what I did to Laurel…”

“She wasn’t real,” Oliver tried to reassure him.

“But _I thought she was_ ,” the other had insisted. “She put me away, was just doing her job, and I was…fixated on her. I was obsessed. I wanted to kill her, I wanted justice—that’s what I saw it as. Justice. And when she threatened you…I want to say I only did it to protect you, but really, I just wanted it so bad. You were just an excuse.” Barry’s body spasmed as he thought about what had happened, and Oliver couldn’t think of what to say.

That was a lot of their nights, recently. Barry would wake up from a nightmare, and Oliver would just hold him as he trembled over his memories, the horrible choices he’d made in his fake life. The older man didn’t even know where to start in trying to help, although pointing out that Barry had been in plenty of dubious positions in this world and still made the right choices seemed to soothe his boyfriend little by little. 

Tonight Barry was silent for a while, simply allowing himself to be rocked back and forth by the archer. “I’m not a hero,” he croaked quietly, painfully, against Ollie’s chest. “I don’t even know what I am anymore, Ollie. I keep waking up waiting to be back there in that cell. Waiting to be that me again.”

Ollie pulled him close, listening to Barry sniffle into his chest. “Barry, listen to me. You are a good man, and definitely one of the most heroic men I’ve ever met. Honestly, ever since I met you, your entire being never made sense to me. Twice now, you’ve been forced to live through the most awful experience anyone could imagine—as an eleven year old kid, you lived that. People older than you, more experienced, stronger—they could go through something like that, and it would have broken them. Made them lose all faith in humanity. Because that sort of darkness…it infects you. It stays with you. And when AIDA wrote the Framework for you, it put you in that darkness.

“But out here? When I met you for the first time, tripping down the stairs,” Oliver smiled at the memory, and Barry’s lips twitched in response. “…You were just so full of _light_. You _still are_. No matter what we see, or fight, you are always the person that gets me through, gives me hope that things can be okay. Because you are a good person, and you choose the good path. And now you hold people together with compassion, and love. Central City is an inspiration for Human-Inhuman relations because of _you_ , Barry. So much good in this world? It’s all because of _you_ , and no matter what happened in there, who you are out here is so much more important. You’re a hero.”

Barry let out a tremulous breath, and Oliver hugged him tight, whispering how much he loved the man, and how he’d always be there, no matter what, until the speedster’s tears subsided and he dozed off again.


End file.
